Analytics have always been a crucial channel for understanding customer behavior and learning to do things better. But new trends show an increased focus on real-time high-level analytics. So what does this mean? Basically mapping and understanding different customer actions and profiles on a micro as well as the macro level is becoming more important. It’s not enough just to have data, the data needs to happen now and in a way that can be easily transformed into actionable items to constantly improve customers’ UX of your e-commerce store. There needs to be data on every conversion point and a way of following each and every path a customer can take.

A move towards Asia

For a long time, the focus has been on the US. It is a huge, growing and central market to e-commerce. However, that doesn’t mean it will be the place to focus energies forever. Right now the US market is still growing, however, it is reaching a saturation point, which means we are likely to see a plateau in the market soon. So what’s next for e-commerce? Well, the Asian market is beginning to boom, and in particular, China. So what does that mean for e-commerce store owners? Well, now is a good time to go global and begin targeting the Asian market (or at least begin thinking about it). Of course, this isn’t a strategy that will work for everyone since a plateauing US market doesn’t mean a bad market. Everything depends on your business and your customers. And while there is no need for physical infrastructure when it comes to expanding operations, there are a variety of other challenges (cultural, languages and more).

The worlds of social media and commerce are intersecting. With places like Facebook Marketplace, buying online doesn’t even mean logging out of social media or browsing specific websites or apps. But this trend means more than just marketplaces on social media; it is a move towards e-commerce marketplaces or stores inside of nested social media sites. The good news is that this trend makes it even easier to leverage social media brand ambassadors and user-generated content.

Online reviews move to other mediums

For a long time online reviews have been crucial to not only promoting online businesses, but to gaining the basic trust needed to bring customers to a store and complete a purchase. While they are gaining volume, popularity and trust, the medium of reviews is only now beginning to widen. At the beginning reviews were all about text, but today you can move online comments to much more personal and interactive mediums like video, gifs and even voice to keep customers engaged and shopping for longer.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.